The Greatest Love Story Never Told (2024) Movie Script

1
[gentle music playing]
[J.Lo] I've been married four times now.
I'm sure people watching from
the outside were like,
"What is this fucking girl's problem?"
You saw kind of a compulsive behavior.
What I portrayed to the world was,
oh, this didn't work out.
And it's fine, and I'm good,
and they're good, and they were great,
and I was great.
And all of that was kind of bullshit.
[pop music plays]
I'm still, I'm still
[man] We are rolling ladies.
Everybody looking this way.
Okay, camera's speeding.
I'm still
[man] And camera, action.
I'm still, I'm still
[man] Guys, quietly please,
quietly please. We are rolling.
I'm still
I'm still, I'm still
[man] No, I liked where you were.
- Let's go.
- [man] Yeah, let's roll.
[pop music continues]
[wedding guests screaming]
[crew member] Cutting, cut-cut!
[host] Pop superstar, Jennifer Lopez,
has new music on the way.
J.Lo celebrated
the 20th anniversary of her hit album,
This is Me Then, by announcing a new
project called This Is Me Now,
a soon to be released record
will chronicle Lopez's life journey
across the last 20 years
with new songs about her childhood,
as well as her history
of unsuccessful relationships.
All my cards laid out
[J.Lo] I have decided to tell my story,
or tell my truth,
that I've never shared
with anybody in the world.
[music flourishes]
Which is the truth about my personal life.
I'm goin' all in right now
20 years ago,
I fell in love with the love of my life.
[crowd clamoring]
And during that time I was making
an album called This Is Me Then.
Don't be fooled
By the rocks that I got
I'm still, I'm still Jenny
From the block
[J.Lo] I hadn't made an album since then.
18 years later, we got back together,
and I was very inspired.
I was talking and Benny Medina,
my longtime manager,
and one of my best friends, said it is
time for you to make music again.
She started telling me, you know,
I haven't made an album in a long time,
but I really finally have something
that I want to write about.
And I don't know if anyone else
has a story like that in the world.
[man] And when you get that
from a true artist like her,
it allows you to really
be able to channel it.
Like, what do we want that to sound like?
She spoke very openly to us
and it was really
It was beautiful, man.
It was that first day was magical.
When we got back together
I'm telling my story.
This is what it's like
On that first day
I showed everybody this book.
This book is a book that Ben gave me
on our first Christmas back together.
It is every letter and every email that we
wrote to each other from 20 years ago.
And today,
The Greatest Love Story Never Told
by Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck
2001 and 2021 and counting.
It became like our Bible,
and we just left it there in the studio,
and people would thumb through it.
They're like, "Can we look at it?"
I was like, "Look at it!"
It's like when you open the book,
it's like a light just come from, like
Ahh!
She would pick one and she would
let us touch them and read them.
They're real letters
with like pen on paper.
And I was,
"Girl, I'm gonna fuck this up."
I'm like, move all the liquids away,
you know?
[man] She showed us the box
that Ben had given to her
which included all the letters.
First off, who does that?
Like, this guy gets Boyfriend of the Year
as far as I'm concerned.
[Affleck] I came to the house one day,
and there was like, she had told me,
"The musicians are coming,
this great producer, Rogt,"
blah-blah-blah.
And then I went down there and my book
that I had given her was down there.
She was like, "I've been reading
and the people
This is the kind of inspiration
I've been showing them the book."
I was like,
"You've been showing all the musicians
all those letters that, uh"
And they were like,
"Yeah, we call you Pen Affleck,"
and I was like "Oh, my God."
I did really find the beauty,
and the poetry, and the irony,
in the fact that it's
the greatest love story never told,
and if you're making a record about it
- [all snapping]
- [laughs]
that seems kind of like telling it.
[J.Lo] Once the music was done,
I felt it was so beautiful and special,
and I wanted to share it
with the world in the biggest way.
And I don't want to
just put out the single
and put out the music video
and see what happens.
No, I had this idea.
What I've decided to do
We're going to make a film.
I want to make a movie.
This is really about bringing the album
to life in a different way.
Prince did it with Purple Rain.
He just wrote the story of his life.
But made just a movie
where he played his songs.
This is me taking my songs
and making my own musical.
And so I came up with this idea
with Dave Myers,
who I worked with
making music videos 20 years ago.
What is Dave doing right now?
Then when you put
a visually genius director on things,
they really bring it to life in a way
that is even more than you imagined.
It really allows you to be
as creative as you want to be.
[hip-hop beat playing]
I've tracked her for 20 years,
we worked together 20 years ago,
so like, I've paid attention
to her journey.
Hadn't seen her
but had formulated thoughts.
I wonder what she's going through,
and I show up to her house,
and she tells me
what happened the last 20 years.
And I'm like,
"Oh, my God, that's our story."
She shared a lot of details
and we did a lot of co-writing together.
It's an abstract biography, you know?
It's taking the emotion
of what she's gone through
and kind of playing with that,
not necessarily
being literal to this relationship
or that relationship.
We sort of reverse engineered it.
There was already an album,
and then we kind of rearranged the songs
to try to match the narrative
that we're telling.
It's not anything that's been done before.
It's not quite a long form music video,
and it's not quite a movie.
It's somewhere in between.
How we pulled that off
will be a new thing,
a new version
of what you do with an album.
[Meyers] I tried to string all the songs
that she shared with me
into a truth that she shared with me.
She connected with it, and we just
rolled up our sleeves from there.
And that leads into the first song,
which is "Hearts and Flowers".
I don't know if you remember it,
it's a very hard beat.
It's like boom,
dun, dun, dun, dun, boom.
And you see everybody
working in the factories.
It will be all of these characters
- Mm-hm.
- who are trying to fix something,
and you don't really know what it is,
but it's a mechanical heart.
[Meyers] The heart factory
is the abstract version
of what might go on inside
when everything starts to fail.
In my head, everybody working.
[Meyers] There is a factory
with workers feeding it rose petals.
It's just part of a storytelling device
to set up that love needs an ingredient.
Just starts off
Wounded soldier
Wounded soldier
First day!
Here we go
Diamonds from pressure
Time is precious
[J.Lo] And the whole album
is kind of like the twin album
to This is Me Then,
which I did 20 years ago.
- I'd keep their apartment the same.
- Oh, keep it, all of it.
Put it on my back
'Cause I'm built for the mile
Opening her eyes in a hospital bed,
younger, age 28,
and she wasn't emaciated but exhausted.
Technically, you weren't 28, but
Yep. All her friends are
But you were.
You were.
That's why you were not as smart as me.
I'm still, I'm still
I'm still
I love that you want to play younger,
even in the autobiographical.
This is not my autobiographical.
This is meta.
- This is me using some of my story.
- I see.
Semi-autobiographical.
It's your story but younger.
[laughing]
You're an idiot.
Hearts and flowers
It ain't all hearts and flowers
So many nights and hours
But she's still got her beauty, her booty,
and her bank account so bye-boy to him.
Papi, this isn't about me and you!
Papi, take that out.
- No, this is
- That is not part of the script!
I'm still, I'm still
[Goldsmith-Thomas]
I was her agent in the '90s.
We became very close friends very quickly.
[J.Lo] We hit it off right away.
I mean, she was funny and powerful.
She reminded me of the women
that I grew up with.
I just knew that
I wanted to work with her.
[Goldsmith-Thomas]
I chased Jennifer to sign her.
I knew how talented she was.
[J.Lo] We've been together now
for 20-something years.
[laughing]
[Goldsmith-Thomas] We're like family.
We're like sisters. Right?
[J.Lo] Exactly like sisters.
On this project,
I've been asked to just sort of oversee.
If she needs me
I'm there to bounce an idea.
I'm working on script with her
when she wants me to.
Hey, you know what?
This was good stuff you did today.
- Oh, good.
- Yeah, this was good stuff. What?
Don't Don't panic.
I'm not, because I know it's there.
You're just being dramatic.
I'm going to go inside.
When you have it, send it to me,
and send it to Ben so he can read it.
Okay. So, I don't necessarily
No worries. I found it.
I sometimes think of Benny and I
as these two pillars beside her.
So if she wobbles, we go, oh. [chuckles]
But, conversely,
if we wobble, she goes, oh.
It's a good trio.
Whatcha tryin' to do?
- Take your chips.
- You're on a diet.
- Do you want one?
- No, I don't eat that kind of food.
[laughing]
[J.Lo] Benny Medina,
he's more than just my manager.
If there's one person
who believed in me from the beginning,
from the first time I played him
a raggedy little demo
And it was just her voice live,
in her room at that time,
and she completely blew me away.
And I've never lost that feeling
for that song or for how she puts it down.
[Affleck] So Jen's making this movie
based on her album, starts rehearsing,
casting, has a deal
basically set to go to finance it.
[Medina] We had a deal on paper.
We had started production.
Then I got a call.
Deal's off. Pulled it.
He said that they were blown away by you,
you know, the dynamic in the room,
thought there was just too much
that was being bitten off.
The quality was gonna be
potentially compromised, you know?
I've never been involved
with any major studio,
small independent production company,
anything that has given me a
a deal on paper.
Here, we will give you this for this.
A $30 million deal
and then taking it off the table.
[Medina] Every streamer
said musical movies don't sell.
Beyonc didn't sell, Rihanna didn't sell.
There was no appetite for a musical film
based on an album, no matter
what the story, no matter what the star.
When they run their numbers
on music projects, you know,
the numbers are not as great.
Whatever, I get it.
[Medina] We had just had
number one at Amazon,
and the biggest at Netflix, and
but not one that had music.
Then I was like,
"Oh, shit, who's paying for this?"
I guess me.
Drop the fucking mic.
You're not paying for your own movie.
[Goldsmith-Thomas]
She decided in a very bullish way
to finance this project.
[Affleck] Making a movie
with your own money
is the most famous
cardinal sin in Hollywood.
[Goldsmith-Thomas] It was about
investing in yourself. Literally.
[soulful music playing]
[Meyers] You know,
dance has been a huge part of her life,
but my videos with her
have been like, you know,
"Okay, roll camera.
All right, dance, Jen!" You know?
But now we actually
conceived a story together.
So her dance serves the story.
And, you know, just
it's a beautiful process of watching it
sort of all blossom out
and becoming something.
- Right? That goes there?
- Yeah.
["Under Pressure"
by Queen ft. David Bowie]
[woman] Shall we start on
our favorite subject? The budget.
Boy, uh, yeah.
Production, casting, locations,
the whole machinery was moving.
I'm projecting that we're going to be
going into production over budget.
So we're all open to cuts?
Budget cuts, you mean?
- Scene cut lead to budget cuts.
- No. No, that's not an option.
I'm depending on all of you
to do what you do
so we can get this done
within the budget that I gave you.
The message is save as much
fucking money as we can.
Yes. It sounds like you guys still
have work to do in that department.
There was no buyer out there to sell it.
We had nothing to show,
and we're burning cash every day.
["Under Pressure" continues]
There's one ceremony, three receptions.
You don't have to have three different
a beach, a desert, a this.
It's less about the location.
It's more about hitting the theme.
Under pressure
That brings a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
Fifty-five grand, $300,000, $470,000.
Next week, it'll be something else like,
"Oh, shit, the conveyor belt
turned out to
you know, need an extra wrench."
["Under Pressure" continues]
[J.Lo] I'm gonna tell you right now,
do not bother me while we're shooting.
Don't do it. It's gonna be a bad idea.
I'm going to have so much
to concentrate on.
How muddy is the mud going to be?
However we want it to be, right?
Dares you to change our way of caring
Let me tell you,
the price of mud is finna go up.
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
- Do you think I look fat?
- Too skinny.
[J.Lo] Today, I'm gonna to take
a break from dancing.
I was going to dance all day today,
but I danced all day yesterday,
so I'm gonna dance tomorrow.
I'm really kind of like,
look at everybody
and really kind of just like,
are we crafting this
in the way we need to?
[hip-hop music playing]
I like it because it's like everybody's
moving in unison and it's nice,
but then the moves towards the end,
if you're going to double it,
it should just feel like it's all like,
as we lead the heart, there's this like,
it's working in perfect harmony.
- Boom.
- Right?
Can you run that one more time, please?
[Brown scatting]
Then we can go into that
Let's go into that.
Know what I'm sayin'?
I don't know what that is but it's, uh
[scatting]
Then we could
Anthony Ramos was gonna do this.
The guy from In the Heights.
He was going to do the "Rebound" number
with me. "The Glass House."
And he was like,
"Ah, I'm friends with Marc."
So, I didn't First of all, I didn't know
that you and Marc were like good friends.
I didn't know that.
Well, that's that's nice.
You know,
he's the father of my kids, obviously.
Um, I'm never going to do anything
that's going to really,
like, pinpoint him out.
But it is very meta.
It is about kind of the 20-year journey
between that last album and this album.
And a lot of things happened,
and there was a lot
of relationships that I was in.
That thing that you're playing in it,
is representative of many relationships,
you know, not one specific relationship.
I'm not even playing me in this.
There's a protagonist,
this woman, that goes on this journey.
He's like, "Yeah, I think that people are
gonna think that You know how media is."
I said, "But if we only did our art
thinking about what
the media's going to say"
- It wouldn't be art.
- "What the fuck are we doing?"
Right.
I've known Jennifer since 1999
and the capacity
that I work with Jennifer, it's
wardrobe supervisor, wrangler.
Which glasses you like, Beezy?
These or these?
- [Beezy] That's the one I love.
- [man] The yellow.
[Beezy] She is one of my best friends,
my sister, my warrior, my ride or die.
It takes courage to share your truths.
Jennifer is finally in
a very solid place in her life
where she's able to do those things.
[trepidatious music]
[woman] We sent out all the offers
last night to everybody.
And we're waiting to hear back
on a few people, um
- Like Jane Fonda.
- [Diener] Taylor Swift is a no.
Jason Momoa is not available.
Jennifer Coolidge, not available.
Lizzo, not available.
He's doing Succession, too,
and The Lion King
and Star Wars: Andor, too.
So he's not necessarily
He's not available, but he loves you.
- You want Vanessa Hudgens, by the way?
- [J.Lo] For what?
- One of the friends. Oh, never mind.
- [Diener] She's not available.
It'd be good to get Bad Bunny
to do a little cameo as the bad kid.
Oh, The Wrong Again?
That would be good.
Question becomes if Trevor is there,
do we want James Corden, too, or is?
- Okay. Right.
- [Baxter] Ariana Grande is unavailable.
She's in London until September.
Snoop's not available, unfortunately.
[J.Lo] I don't want to force anybody
to do this who doesn't go,
"This is going to be fun." Nobody wants to
say no to me, Benny. I get that.
But when an actor doesn't like a script,
or doesn't think it's good enough,
or is worried about it,
that's what they'll say.
I know that. I've done it.
I mean, I know Val was available,
but I want you to call Derek.
And we need him for like one or two days.
It's a wedding, babe,
he's in a wedding, it's not a
It's a wedding.
He's not going to give up this wedding.
- I mean, I could talk to Benny.
- Who's wedding?
It's a wedding he's in.
He can't it's-it's
Unfortunately, it's where it's landing.
- I want you to call him.
- [Goldsmith-Thomas] Okay.
Who's going to be Khloe Kardashian?
- She's making a cameo?
- [J.Lo] No.
Oh. It was supposed to be? Gotcha.
People scared.
- [Lalau] Yeah.
- Scared to put themselves out there.
I get it. It took me a long time.
- I'm scared.
- [Lalau] Yeah.
You don't look like it,
though, for sure but
I don't act like I'm scared but
that's the secret
to my whole fucking career.
One and two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
And then it's five
[J.Lo] And then there's the personal story
of Ben and I that has never been told.
I don't think he's very comfortable
with me doing all of this.
But he loves me, he knows I'm an artist,
and he's going to support me
in every way he can,
because he knows this is
He can't stop me from making
the music I made,
and writing the words that I wrote.
He can't
you know, that's going to happen,
and he doesn't want to stop me.
He wants to do that.
But that doesn't mean he's, you know,
kind of comfortable being the muse
Jen was really inspired
by this experience,
which is how artists do their work.
They get inspired,
their personal life, it moves you.
I know as a writer and director,
like I certainly do the same things.
But things that are private,
I'd always felt are sacred and special,
because, in part, they're private.
So this was something
of an adjustment for me.
[J.Lo] We're totally different people now
and we're the same,
and we have the same love. 100%.
Like, I'd never fallen out of love
with you. I had just put it over here.
It seems like it's like liberating
in a sense, because
- [J.Lo] It is.
- He loves every part of you,
- but it's not dependent on
- How I look.
- what this album is, or what radio
- No.
- Anything, it's like he
- No, it's not.
You always say, he always wants to
see you in the bun, you know?
- Yeah.
- [Baxter] No makeup on.
[laughing]
[sputters] You're used to seeing me
around the house, kind of schlepy,
- and kind of, you know, in sweat pants
- [Affleck] No, that's not
- and my striped socks
- [Affleck] No, stop it. We're not
going for the "I'm not pretty"
and all this bullshit.
I'm not saying I'm not pretty.
I'm saying you're used to seeing me
kind of like the little old lady at home.
[Affleck] You're gorgeous,
and that's what I'm used to.
- What I'm saying is
- And then when I get up
and start dancing, you're like,
"Oh, right, I forgot she could dance."
What he said and what he saw in me,
and what he made me believe about myself,
only comes from love.
[gentle music playing]
Because nobody else
could have made me see that
about myself.
It's very moving.
[sniffles]
Because I didn't think much of myself,
and so the world didn't think much of me.
That lined up.
[gentle music continues]
This is how it is.
See it. Believe it.
I was like, okay.
[Medina] This is regarding Jane,
she called me
and goes, "I believe
that everyone in the entire world
is pulling for this relationship
and this love.
And the idea of how you present that
is so sacrosanct, is so important,
that it should be handled in a way
that you aren't overly flaunting it,
so much so, that it creates
any form of criticism or resentment.
My biggest concern is that if, you know,
what critics or people
sort of come at her in any way."
- I don't
- I don't expect anybody to get this.
Okay. I don't.
What she's afraid about
is what the album is.
And that's not changing.
That's done.
And I don't I'm not
I'm an artist,
and that's the album I wrote,
and I love it, and I'll stand by it.
I wasn't sure if I wanted her
to reveal all of this.
I wasn't sure it was necessary.
So I was afraid on this project,
and as I see it forming,
I'm excited,
and I'm still a little afraid.
Right now,
there's a little bit of trepidation
over the
some of the ambition of the project.
[J.Lo] I didn't have to do this.
I didn't even have to make the record.
It's not like anybody was clamoring
for the next J.Lo record.
[laughs] You know what I mean?
And I know that there's some people
around me who are like, this is stupid.
Why is she doing this?
She doesn't need to do this.
And they're right,
I don't need to do any of it.
I don't, but I want to.
[crew chattering]
- Have you seen this conveyor belt?
- No.
Lord, help us.
Jesus
[Baxter] When we're on top of them,
if somebody stands on it,
the conveyor belt stops.
Who's in charge of the stages
and the things?
We're supposed to
I'm supposed to dance on it.
They're saying when I get on there,
it's going to stop.
So, it won't move.
But we can't even rehearse with them now
'cause there's no power till next week.
So why are we here?
[Baxter] Hey, can Nathan and Dave
- How are you?
- please come down as well?
- Hi.
- [Baxter] Um, so what's going on?
This is the first, right now,
when everybody walked in here
that we're hearing, that one,
they can't move when she's on top of it,
and also that they weren't
going to work today.
[sputtering]
I'm just reacting
to this information right now.
- [J.Lo] Yeah.
- [Diener] I wanna go and fix it.
- So if I can have like, five or
- [J.Lo] Do that then.
- ten minutes. Yeah, okay.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
[Baxter] As we walked in, they said,
"Oh, well, they're not going to turn on."
[Medina] It's really simple,
they didn't get it done.
But even if you
don't get it done, tell us,
- before we all walk in here.
- That's my point.
- What's up?
- [Diener] It's not gonna to work today.
- It's some fucked up yep.
- Fantastic.
We're gonna get it working
so that you can rehearse before the day.
- Thank you, sorry.
- [J.Lo] That's okay.
Could, um, we show you some
umbrella options for "Hummingbird"?
- Uh, sure. I need to leave.
- Yep, they're right here.
Is this big enough?
That's okay.
- [man] No?
- No, I like the clear,
and I think I like the more rounded it is.
- [woman] There was more solid
- This is pulling, like,
- the whole entire belt.
- [woman] The whole thing, yeah.
So we have to just solve that problem.
What would be ideal,
would be like a dance studio floor
that has a little bit
of give underneath it.
[Baxter] Do you have 12 more seconds
to just feel the mud?
Jennifer, to feel the mud?
I've been waiting to show you mud.
[laughing]
I know, they're chasing me
to the car with it.
- Bye, guys!
- [all] Bye!
- [J.Lo] Yeah, that could be shorter.
- [Goldsmith-Thomas] Cute short one?
Not cute and short like a French maid.
Like, like a doctor.
I would go red. I would look at it
on the jumpsuits, not on you guys.
- Of course,
- Before I really made the final decision.
I think this is a good option,
but I would like to see one
that's more wet.
- Bye-bye, everybody.
- [woman] Okay.
[man] Thank you, Jennifer,
have a good night.
- [woman] Thank you. Good night, Jen.
- [J.Lo] Goodnight.
Yeah, I feel like, um,
there's a lot to do this weekend.
I feel like if we don't
get those scenes right tomorrow
[Medina] Yeah.
Okay?
I think they should just have
the capacity with that drier mud
- to add water if we need.
- [Medina] Okay.
Bring those muds, please, one more time.
- [J.Lo] No, I gotta go.
- One more quick one.
I just want to see which one
you're referencing. Quick!
[engine starts]
[Medina] One sec, this one or this one?
- [woman] She said "Drive."
- [man] She said "Go away.'
- [man 2] That's the wet one.
- [Medina] She wants this one.
[Medina] She likes this this.
She likes this flavor, a little wetter.
- [woman] The chunky one
- Not the wet one, the crumblier one.
- [man 2] Do you know what
- Keep it crumblier and add some water
on top of it so you get a little splatter.
- [man 2] Exactly, yeah. Okay.
- Not a second wasted of today. Good work.
[slow instrumental music]
[J.Lo] So, last night, Ben says to me,
"Why are you so stressed lately?"
I said, "I'm not just financing it,
I'm writing it, I'm choreographing it,
dancing in it, singing in it,
- staring in it, producing the record."
- [Goldsmith-Thomas] Producing it.
Like I said, it's all [sputters]
Everybody has all these financier
questions and budget questions for me.
[muttering]
[Goldsmith-Thomas] All right,
I'll call you later. I love you.
- I love you. Bye.
- Bye.
[Medina] You know,
I don't like coming into any room
and and seeing things not working well.
They've just come off of two insanely
well-produced, well-organized films,
and she won't look at anything
as being any different.
If anything, she'll look at it
as even needing to be better than those,
in terms of the execution of stuff,
because it's every penny of her money
- Yep.
- and all of her own time,
talent and story
that's going into this thing,
and it's got to flow because otherwise
any kind of stop-start-stop,
I can see it when it takes her out,
and she's got to be 100% in.
Yeah, she's got a few
tough weeks ahead of her.
I'm I don't want to say I'm worried,
but, I think that our schedule
is aggressive.
Okay, so going I know this is
so stupid, or maybe it's not,
but like going back to the seat backs.
Do you know, we didn't make them
just because normally
you don't on a music video,
not that this is a real music
Please stop calling
or even referencing music videos, guys.
This is not a music video.
It's not going to function
like a music video,
it's not going to operate
like a music video,
and it's fine that you
don't have seat backs.
[Meyers] She's so determined
to pull this off.
The people that really swing are always in
a vulnerable place and it's terrifying.
Those points in your career
where you either
choose to bet on yourself or you don't.
Do I want to assume more of a risk,
or do I want to assume less of a risk?
And if you really truly
believe in yourself,
and you really truly believe
in what you're doing.
It's almost always
better to bet on yourself.
[J.Lo] I have to tell the story
the way it needs to be told.
It's just something inside of me
that just goes,
"This is all I know how to do."
I just want people
to believe that love exists.
If I can use my story to do that,
then as an artist,
that's what I should do.
Maybe I'm setting myself up
to be fucking
[sighs]
criticized again, I don't know,
but that's what my heart's
telling me to do.
[somber orchestra music]
Uh, no. No, no, like right here.
Yeah, a little higher.
- There's J.Lo.
- There she is.
J.Lo was created back then
with those first three albums.
This Is Me Then,
"Jenny From The Block", and all that.
In a way, she's kind of
a larger-than-life character.
It was really me becoming
who I always dreamt of being.
[Meyers] Yep, she's coming
[J.Lo] This Is Me Now is about truth
and facing the truth of who
you really are and embracing that.
And the truth is,
I'm not the same as I was 20 years ago.
I was always
very much about show business,
put your best foot forward.
Don't let them see when you're suffering.
Don't let them see when you're hurt.
Don't worry about
if somebody did this or did that,
or if you suffered this or suffered that,
it doesn't matter.
They don't care. They want you to sing.
They want you to dance.
They want you to do the movie,
want you to be funny in the interview.
Like, that's what my life was.
But then I realized that I wasn't
being kind of authentic to myself.
There was a part of me
that I was hiding.
There was a part of me
that I was ashamed of.
And the things that I went through
in my personal life,
'cause I think that they would have
thought that that was weak or
damaged or dysfunctional,
and I didn't ever want to seem that way.
I wanted to seem strong
and powerful and able.
- [man 1] Roll cameras, please.
- [man 2] All right, room rolling.
[J.Lo] I wasn't struggling
in my professional life.
Like, I feel like I had control of that.
And that's why I put a lot into it.
When I went home at night,
and when I was dealing in my own life,
with my own demons,
and my own relationships,
was such a fucking struggle.
Couldn't we both win?
When her and Ben first broke up,
it was catastrophic to her constitution.
Everything that she wanted from
from what she understood love to be,
for that to not work, for the pressures
to break it apart, it just spun her out.
[J.Lo] Ben and I, we broke up
three days before our wedding,
and we had like a big wedding plan,
like 14 ushers and bridesmaids,
and three days before,
we just crumbled under the pressure.
I think we all go along thinking like,
"I'm doing okay."
I've been through these things."
You kind of shake If you're like me,
you kinda shake it off and be like,
put your best foot forward,
and just do your thing,
and fucking conquer the world.
Right? It motivates us
through all these different things
but at the end of the day
[voice fades out]
I had a broken heart once.
[gentle music playing]
Long time ago.
All my friends, they told me,
you know, that I needed a break.
That I should spend some time alone.
I didn't.
For all those years, was really hard,
'cause I didn't just feel like
I lost the love of my life.
I felt like I lost,
like, the best friend that I ever had
and I couldn't talk to for so many years.
And that was the hardest part.
You know, I used to think that,
um, it was
everybody else that was broken.
[gentle music continues]
Now I think maybe it was just me.
I loved you so much
That messed me up
Gave what I could
But it wasn't enough
You drifted away
Left me so numb
Tears on my gown
Look what you've done
Broken like me
Broken like me
Covered in scars
Now this is me
[Affleck] So when I first read the script,
it looked like the inciting incident
that causes all this pain
down the road is our breakup.
I thought, "Wow, nobody did
anything wrong. It was mutual."
I think for us to move on from that,
we have to kind of forgive it,
forgive each other. Do you forgive me?
[Meyers] Someone might need to
[woman] Where's that goddamn
Jennifer Lopez?
She better be here,
or I'm gonna kill her. Is she here?
I would have sliced that bitch
if she weren't here.
Calling me down here to do a cameo, bitch.
- Whitney.
- [Meyers] Hey.
- [Meyers] Hey, Jenifer.
- I'm the star.
- [Meyers] Yes, you are.
- I'm gonna come down and do a cameo.
[Meyers] I'm Dave the director,
nice to meet you.
Oh, well, hell, you're in so much trouble.
- [Meyers] I am.
- I hope you're ready.
- Hi, boo.
- It's so good to see you!
[Lewis] My agent called me,
"Jennifer Lopez is doing a music video."
I said "Okay, what does that have to do
with me? I don't do music videos.
I'm Jenifer Lewis.
Got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Why would I show up for a music video,
even if it is J.Lo?"
I'm J.Lew.
["The Sign" by Ace of Base playing]
In my own search for love
I tried a lot of different things.
I went to card readers
and looked to the signs,
you know, like, who's my perfect match?
And it led me down
a lot of questionable roads.
[man] So when I got this call, yeah,
it was a little weird.
You know, the Zodiac come to life.
[song continues]
- And the Zodiac is, you know
- Here we go.
People really think the universe
gives a shit about them, okay.
I got a new life
You would hardly recognize me
I'm playing Gemini.
You know, that split bitch?
- She's still searching.
- Mm-hm.
I'm not into the Zodiac signs,
so I don't know what the fuck they do.
[J.Lo] The Zodiacs represent the Greek
course of your life: your family,
your friends, coworkers, the people
who are watching you and commenting.
And in my case, the media, fans,
sometimes feels like the whole world.
- [Meyers] Do you know what you're doing?
- Yes, I think so. For the most part.
For the most part, yes, ma'am.
[J.Lo] You have done movies, right?
Yes, ma'am.
I'm basically a pretty famous actor.
I saw the sign
And it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign
Life is demanding
Without understanding
Down there is the universe.
[song continues]
- Whoo!
- Damn!
And Paul says, "Fucking fairy tales, man,
I love happy endings."
And because he's so there's, like,
the double entendre of happy endings.
Right. Well, what do you
mean by that, actually?
[J.Lo] Okay.
Shit, what happened? She fall apart again?
No, no, no happy endings
means "happy endings."
- Oh, happy endings.
- Yes! Okay.
[man] What's wrong with you
is on the inside.
[woman] Well, at least she got her
beauty, her booty, and that bank account
so bye-boy to him, right?
[J.Lo] Okay. This this is you, the lover.
[woman] Lover.
- This is Anna over here. [laughing]
- No. Why, why, why?
This is Elaine.
Elaine is the quiet one in my universe.
She doesn't talk.
Oh, and this.
I never leave the couch
without my love detector.
It has three settings: one, nightstand.
Holiday season.
[Meyers] No, it's not one
one-night stand is all one word.
[man speaking Spanish]
- Yeah. Fucking English. I hate it.
- [crew laughing]
Okay, one-night stand. Yeah.
Like a one-fuck night.
[man] Yeah, exactly.
[laughter]
[laughing and chatting]
[J.Lo] No, that part was so funny,
I couldn't take it!
- What are you guys doing here?
- It's an intervention.
[man]
Oh, my bad, sorry about that.
It's all right.
I got a license, don't worry.
[laughing]
[Affleck] She'd be hurt.
Yes, that's great.
[man] Yeah?
- [crew member] Here we go.
- Hold on, Jen's Jen's, uh
How you doin', papa?
It's a pleasure to meet you, man.
My brother loves the crap out of you.
You're his favorite Batman ever,
and you made Armageddon, dude.
- Aw, thank you.
- You really did. I still sing the
All my bags are packed
I'm ready to go
Man. Pleasure to meet you guys.
That was really, really funny,
I loved that
When are you when are you guys
doing another film together?
That last one was Gigli, right? Or
- Yes.
- [Affleck] That's right. Exactly.
- [man] Yeah.
- It was Gigli.
That's why we haven't done one since then.
Okay, for sure.
[J.Lo] We're gonna do one one day.
Broken like me
I'm still in love with you, boy
I'm still in love
Uh there's a
There's an additional shoot day
that's come up for The Guru.
How much is that going to cost us?
That, I that's should be discussed.
[Baxter] Couple hundred.
[Goldsmith-Thomas] I think to go 200,000
for a guru is nonsensical.
You guys can confer but
- Oh, why don't you stay?
- Don't worry about that.
- Don't even bring that up.
- This is haunting me now.
No, I'm, I'm
- But that's a $200,000 hit to her.
- [Baxter] Yes.
You should, please, not today.
Okay, if not today,
it'll haunt me tomorrow.
[Meyers] Yeah.
Don't let her ears hear this right now.
Well, it's only her
He's asking you to be quiet, sweetie,
take the cues.
- Maybe I shouldn't be the quiet friend.
- Shh.
Oh, ha! Touch.
You'll give people anxiety
when they're working.
Let me get a little Q-Tip.
[mouthing] It's my job.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
Maybe you wanna go talk to him over there
and talk about it.
[Goldsmith-Thomas] Well, I
I just want to resolve it, but okay.
- Dave.
- [Meyers] Yes?
We don't have 200,000 extra,
because we're gonna need 200,000 extra.
- Okay.
- We're going to need
- the extra money for post.
- Yeah. Okay.
I've been drilling down on budget,
reminding everyone it's her money,
and drilling down on the necessity
of certain things, sometimes too hard,
but, you know,
I'd rather err on the side of her,
um, saving a little money,
but not sacrificing any quality.
And, you know,
and I'm standing on the sidelines
in case she needs a body double.
I just wanna
I just feel like, ooh
Every time I see ya, I just, oh, hey
I feel like startin' somethin'
You got my engine runnin'
You got the keys to turn me on and on
[Meyers] We're in the wedding reception.
The energy in the room is
as if it was a real Jennifer wedding.
I think Jennifer is in full-on
bride mode right now, having a blast.
When it feels right
Nothing else matters
Is this real life
Too good to be true?
Take me all night
I can feel the push
[Meyers] Just going through
all the checklists of a great wedding.
Just swapping out the husbands.
[crew member] Cutting and cut.
[Meyers] That was it, yeah. Next husband.
You love that shit
You know I can't get enough
Give me all that shit
First thing that came to my mind was,
"I'm going to be what? I'm a huh?
I'm a what husband? I'm a who?"
[laughing] Like
But when we start working on it
and working through it, I was like,
"Oh, I see what's going on.
I see what's going on.
Like, you're in on it."
With you, boy
It's the way you love me
The way you touch me
It's the way you look at me
Can't get enough
[crowd cheering]
O f you, boy
Don't catch it.
It's cursed.
[crowd continues cheering]
[dramatic music playing]
[J.Lo] One time
I was married for 11 months.
Another time I was married for a year
And another time
I was married for ten years.
Then even looking back on it now,
and kind of making fun of it
in this surrealistic musical way
It's funny and it's heartbreaking.
[dramatic music continues]
What do I say?
Uh, "'Til death do us part" and it's like,
"Oh, I just wanna Ooh I"
Or, you know, that whole little intro.
You want me to do it like you just did it?
[Meyers laughs]
'Til death do us part.
[Meyers] Jen and I rationalized
that the rain is a sign.
She's like, "Oh, wow, It's a sign.
It's going to be a great marriage."
This shoot's been relentless
just on how fast we're moving,
how fast it came together,
how sensitive costs are.
You know, being that
we don't really have studio support yet.
[chuckles]
[Medina]
This was absolutely the hardest project
that I've ever had to work on
and put together in my career.
This is a really different thing that
we're doing, and it's never been done
How am I going to sell this to a platform?
What is the platform?
[J.Lo] Every single one of them
passed on this movie.
One head of a studio says,
"Okay, um, well, you know what,
nobody watches these things."
Another one will say,
"Well, what are we going to do?
Pay them to promote their own album?
The album that we're stealing from them
and putting on our platform?"
["Money" by The Flying Lizards playing]
[J.Lo] Do you know what I see?
- I see my money going down the drain.
- [Affleck] Remember this.
I'm paying for this.
And this and all whatever the fuck
that is up there.
- Those are gels.
- Paying for that, too. Paying for this.
["Money" continues playing]
Your love give me such a thrill
But your love don't pay my bills
That flag in the back is
was free I'm sure.
[Affleck] It all comes with the truck.
[J.Lo] Another truck.
- This is a camera truck.
- Tons of boxes.
- We have primes, ultra-primes.
- Oh, this is your fantasy truck.
This is a Zeiss compact zoom.
- This is a Arri zoom.
- Oh.
This is the older compact
Angeniuex zoom, right?
These are really good. The 70s, they're
light handheld lenses. Really good.
- I don't care.
- I know.
[indistinct chatter]
Oh, hello.
[laughing]
How are you? [chuckling]
Welcome!
This is where she is now by herself.
Middle of the night, watching TV,
4:00 in the morning,
watching an old romantic film
for the fourth time in a row.
Is that what you do?
I used to.
I used to, Sad, a long time ago.
[Sadghuru] We can say when you exude love
like the sun, it shoots light
- It will find
- it will reflect and return to you.
You shall shine like the sun. [chuckles]
[laughing]
[man] All right, guys. Quietly, please.
We're going to get into this.
- So she looks kind of perfect.
- [man] Yeah.
- [J.Lo] And she shouldn't.
- [man] Okay.
[J.Lo] Just the idea of
that she's been neglected, right?
She's been a little bit roughed up,
that she's bearing the scars
and that looks like something dirty.
- [man] Yeah.
- [J.Lo] Knees scraped.
She should feel like
a little bit of a mess.
If you're going to be me
when you were little,
then I was a tomboy.
So I was real dirty all the time.
You know what a tomboy is?
- Someone who like
- [J.Lo] Loves to play with the boys.
Yeah.
This right here.
- Okay.
- Okay, ready?
What's wrong?
I just think
I didn't get enough love today.
- From your Mom and Dad?
- [girl] From you.
You left me all alone.
You didn't take care of me.
I'm sorry. I love you.
No, you love everybody else but me.
When I was growing up,
I was always looking for somebody
to make me feel loved.
I was a middle child,
not the baby, not the first born.
You just kind of get lost a little bit
in between it all.
That just left me on this train
to show everybody
that I had worth and value too.
So then I started running track,
and winning medals,
and hoping that somebody
would be like, "Look."
People would come over to our house.
Oh, look at all of Jennifer's
trophies and medals.
It made me feel good.
Having my two sisters
bookend me in that way
forced me into a road
where I learned to work really hard
and be very disciplined.
Like an athlete.
And so I just stuck with that.
I just stuck with the working hard part
'cause I was the best at that.
I felt very ignored by my dad
because he was always working nights,
and then all day he would sleep.
And I didn't feel like
I had enough of a connection with him.
My mom was a narcissist,
center of attention, you know,
life of the party type person.
I got very used to being around
people like that.
The combination of the two of those things
set me on a course
to be with those type of people.
What I started to realize
was I'm comfortable with this,
but I don't like this.
I want something different.
I want something better.
[Affleck] Jen felt
emotionally neglected as a child.
We are kind of learning more and more,
it doesn't have to be like sort of
the kind of trauma where you're,
you know, locked in a basement for a year
to leave wounds on you.
In fact, they're deceptive
when they're harder to pin down.
It's a hard thing to look at somebody
whose professional life
is wildly successful and who,
you know, on Instagram
looks like they're living
the happiest life in the world.
The thing you discover,
like you do with with alcohol,
is that there isn't enough alcohol
in all the liquor stores in the world
to fill up that thing.
And in Jennifer's case,
I don't think there's enough followers
or-or movies or records
or-or any of that stuff to
to still that part of you
that still feels a longing and a pain.
Ultimately, that's the work
that you've got to do on your own.
[somber music playing]
I like taking my hair out like this.
It reminds me
like when I was 16 in the Bronx,
running up and down the block.
That crazy little girl
who used to fuckin'
be wild and
No limits.
All dreams and shit.
[man] It meant a lot to me
to have a young Latina
come from where we come from
and be successful.
["Feelin' So Good"
by Jennifer Lopez playing]
The whole first album
I was in almost every session.
A'ight, now I want you to dance
[Fat Joe] We used to be there almost
every night just watching 'em record
all these iconic records.
Party on tonight
Everything is feeling right, DJ
[Fat Joe] We grew up together.
We've been in the game 30 years,
been through ups and downs.
- Am I handsome or not?
- Joe, you the Don
Jenny, you the bomb
Any man disrespect, good as gone
When I opened up my eyes today
Felt the sun shining on my face
[Fat Joe] You're looking at
a hopeless romantic.
And every time you rooted for her,
you always thought
all right, maybe this is the guy.
I feel like there's no limit
To what I can see
For people like me and Jenny,
we don't break, we from the Bronx,
we had to overcome so many obstacles.
We temporarily break down,
but they can't break people like us.
[laughing]
- How you doin', baby?
- How's it going?
- You feeling good?
- I'm feeling great.
You look amazing.
You know,
I look like a psychiatrist, you know.
[J.Lo] Yeah, I think that
It's a beautiful thing
to give my sister some sane advice.
[J.Lo] We're from the same place, that was
why I picked you to do this specific part.
Because it's like I would be talking
to you and you will understand me,
and I will understand you.
You know what I mean?
Definitely not a
He comes into the story at the right time
to speak some truth to her.
You know?
To shake her out of her nonsense.
- What am I doing wrong?
- [dog whimpers]
Why is love so damn hard?
[Fat Joe] You know, some people
use these impassioned relationships
to avoid facing a much greater hurt.
[J.Lo] You think
I'm covering something up,
or I'm using love
as some kind of pain medicine?
[Fat Joe] Have you ever considered
being alone for a minute?
[J.Lo] I used to be terrified to be alone.
I didn't know
what I was gonna do by myself.
Who's going to take care of me,
who's going to protect me?
This one therapist said to me,
"Can you be alone?"
And I was like, I can do it.
I [sputters]
I can be alone. I can be alone
I'll be alone till Christmas. Okay?
Erasing everybody from your phone
who could possibly be somebody
you even think likes you.
Block everybody, do every
and just be alone.
- Jane?
- [Jane Fonda] Hello.
- Jane?
- Is this Jennifer?
- It is, hi!
- Oh hi, sweetheart.
Oh, thanks for calling.
First of all, I want you to know that, uh
I don't entirely know why,
but I feel invested in you and Ben,
and I really, really,
really want this to work.
However, this is my concern.
Like, it feels too much like
you're trying to prove something
instead of just living it.
You know, every other photograph
is the two of you kissing,
the two of you hugging. Um
That's us living our life. [laughing]
Jane and I have
a kind of love relationship
over many years
since she did Monster-in-Law.
You know, it was her first movie back
after leaving the business
for many, many years.
And we just we really bonded.
[both laughing]
[Fonda] I didn't know what to expect,
what it was going to be like
working with her.
Oh, what I do to you. Oh.
When my son proposes to her
right next to me and I'm saying,
"Oh, how wonderful." But what I really
want to do is what I do in my fantasy,
is I want to take the back of her head
and shove her face into the table
Please
over and over it.
[J.Lo] Hold on, hold on! I'm laughing.
I'm laughing. I can't laugh.
I really looked up to her,
obviously, as an amazing actress,
but also for what she
stood for in her life.
There was so much about her,
in all her activism,
and also that she
kinda got beat up in the press.
And we kind of are similar
when it comes to love.
[crowd cheering]
[Fonda] We became friends
on Monster-in-Law,
a film where I have to hate Jennifer.
It was the hardest acting job I ever had.
It seemed the more
we tortured each other on screen,
the closer we became as friends.
And I'm really grateful for
her friendship, her generosity,
which is huge, for showing the world
the beauty of booty!
[crowd cheers]
And making it easier for a whole lot
of girls to love theirs, including me.
Jennifer, thanks for having me be here.
[J.Lo] We actually started
shooting the Zodiacs,
which is what I wanted you to do,
to be kind of like the sage,
kind of like fairy godmother
of the Zodiacs.
Listen, Jane, any day you can do it,
any day you can spare two hours,
one for hair and makeup,
and one to come and do the lines.
It's it will take that long.
[Fonda] Uh
[J.Lo] She's very protective of me.
And she felt like
you're putting yourself out there
to get beat up again.
When Jen and I broke up before,
the catalyst for that
was this massive amount of scrutiny
around our private life.
[indistinct chattering from crowd]
We bought a Bentley
and drove around town with it.
You know, it's like,
"Yeah, take pictures of us!"
It wasn't that.
We just we were just like
celebrating our lives and our love.
[Affleck] I had a very firm sense
of boundaries
initially around, like, the press,
while Jen, I don't think objected to it
in the way I did.
I very much did object to it.
Getting back together, I said,
"Listen, one of the things I don't want
is a relationship on social media."
And then I sort of realized
it's not a fair thing to ask.
It's sort of like, you know,
you're going to marry a boat captain,
and you go,
"Well, I don't like the water." You know?
We're just two people
with kind of different approaches,
trying to learn to compromise.
[woman] So this is six, seven, eight.
We don't have to lie
We know this is wrong
Someone on my mind
And someone on my phone
[J.Lo] Everybody always tells you,
when a relationship is built on a rebound,
when somebody rebounds out of something,
they're not ready
for another relationship.
And no matter how hard they try,
or how long they try to stick together,
they're living in a glass house,
it's gonna it's gonna shatter.
[woman] Push. Got me on that re
Run it back.
Rebound, rebound
[J.Lo] It's always so easy
to judge other people and say,
"Oh, you were in that relationship,
and you're so fucking stupid."
You know, don't you see all your friends
always like, "Come on."
- And you're like, it is not that simple.
- [woman] Right.
- You know what I mean?
- [woman] Mm-hm.
There's something good about this person.
I'm trying to help this person.
And sometimes it's the broken parts in us
that keep us there.
We go up and down
We get lost and found
We go 'round and 'round
We fall in and out
Rebound, rebound, rebound
Catch me on that
Rebound, rebound, rebound
We go up and down
We get lost and found
We go 'round and 'round
We fall in and out
[Meyers] We want to show, is it
It's like this kind of
being shredded and in tatters.
If the love ain't real
I can't really stick around
Guess the game got cold
Now, you wanna rebound
Catch me on that
Rebound, rebound, rebound
Catch me on that
Rebound, rebound, rebound
We go up and down
W e get lost and found
We go 'round and 'round
Glamorous. Glamorous life.
You know how much I love you,
you're my baby.
I'm always going to take care of you.
I'll never leave you.
No matter what.
[J.Lo] There were people in my life
who said I loved you,
and then didn't do things
that were kind of in line
with the word love.
- Perfect?
- What? [sighing]
- Perfect? Huh? Huh?
- Stop! I screwed up.
Stop!
I dare you.
[punching glass]
[dramatic music playing]
[dialogue muted]
[J.Lo] I always thought, like,
oh, it was this other person
that was doing all these things
that were bad and wrong,
but why am I attracting 'em?
Why am I doing that?
Why am I on that vibrational level?
The signs say we're a match.
It's because I haven't
got myself together.
Not looking outward,
like, what is wrong out here?
But what is wrong in here?
It's almost like digging
into the tar inside of you
and kind of pulling it out
deep down and going, this didn't
feel good and that didn't feel good.
And, wow, I didn't realize
that made me feel that way.
And, actually, I'm not really
taking care of myself in a good way.
What do you love about yourself?
[muffled screaming]
You have to hit rock bottom.
Where you're in situations
that are so uncomfortable
and so painful, that you finally go,
"I don't want this anymore."
A therapist said to me,
"What if this was your daughter,
what would you do?"
And it was so clear.
- [punching glass]
- [muffled screaming]
I was like, "I'd tell her get the fuck
out of here, never look back."
But for me,
it was so clouded and complicated
with so much of my
past and my own pain
and hurt and dysfunction
that I couldn't see clearly.
It was like looking through fog.
[Meyers] In most turbulent relationships,
one of the common things
that you hear about is like,
it's hard to leave.
Even when you know, like,
I don't want to be here,
you stretch apart,
you're still pulled back.
And so it's sort of a metaphoric
explanation for that
that tug and pull that you have
when a relationship's not quite working.
I'm glad that one's behind us.
[Gitty]
The shit that happens in real life,
the truth, to me,
that's the most interesting part.
And it's also
the most difficult part to say.
Some of these things,
we don't even admit to ourselves,
let alone admit to the entire world.
[J.Lo] Being thrown around
and manhandled like that, it's not fun.
I mean, I was never in a relationship
where I got beat up.
- [woman] Mm-hm.
- Thank God.
But I've definitely been
manhandled and hit
couple of other unsavory things.
Rough.
Disrespectful.
More than anything,
it's really a vulnerable place
for me to be in every day.
That's why I go to work every day
and I'm like, "What am I doing?
Why am I doing this?"
It's a personal journey, babe.
A personal journey
that will relate to so many women
who are abused, who take abuse.
You're talking about
how we accept less than we deserve.
I mean, I have good intentions with this,
I just don't want it to suck.
- What are you scared of? Sucking?
- That it's going to fucking suck
- You're always going to be scared.
- fucking dick.
You're going to scared of it sucking
until it doesn't.
- Enjoy it.
- 'Cause it is sucking until it doesn't.
Well, right now, it's not finished,
you know what I mean?
This does have problems.
- Because it is fucking sucking
- You've got to discern between things
that suck DNA-wise
and things that just don't work right.
- Well, DNA, I don't think it sucks.
- All right that's all you need.
- But I think right now it just sucks.
- If the the DNA is right
- No, it doesn't suck. That's wrong.
- Yes, it does.
That's just inexperience,
that you haven't done this process before.
I'm sorry that I'm not
an award-winning director. I'm sorry.
- Well, if I was doing a musical concert
- I'm sorry I didn't write
- all the things when I was 21 years old.
- If I was doing a rock show,
I would say to you,
"Tell me how this goes.
Are you usually afraid
before your first performance?"
[laughing]
[choreographer chatting indistinct]
[choreographer]
Want to try it again with music?
- Yeah.
- [choreographer] You got it. Here we go.
["Hearts and Flowers"
by Jennifer Lopez playing]
[choreographer] Yep. Let's go!
Five, six, seven, eight!
Hearts and flowers
It ain't all hearts and flowers
So many nights and hours
Every day of my life
In the grind, faithfully
Superpowers, we all got superpowers
Before you see my life
And say I live the dream
Remember everything
Ain't always what it seems
[music fading]
- [choreographer] Stop!
- [music cuts out]
[choreographer]
Four, five, six, seven, eight.
[foot stomps on floor]
[choreographer] Cross, go.
Now
["This Is Me Now"
by Jennifer Lopez playing]
Fuck!
[music cuts out]
[indistinct chatter]
- [man] Here we go.
- Yeah.
Stop!
[ominous wind whooshing]
[boots stomping on floor]
Now
["This Is Me Now" continues playing]
And I took my time
Had to heal my heart
[muffled music playing]
This is me now
And I took my time
And I took my time
And I took my time
This is me now
And I took my time
And I took my time
And I took my time
[Meyers] In the rehearsal,
you joked that you only had a couple
of these in you, but like, is there
an amount of passes that you wanna do?
- I don't have an amount in my head, no.
- Okay, cool.
- [man 1] Roll cameras.
- [man 2] Rolling.
[somber music playing]
[Meyers] On your marks, please.
All right, crane set.
Playback.
I forget how much older I am
than everybody now. [laughs]
- And everybody else is 22.
- Fifty. Yeah.
I'm just trying to keep up with them.
[Meyers] Three, two, one, action!
- [J.Lo] Dave?
- [Meyers] Yo.
What are we doing?
[Meyers] More. Right?
- Yeah. Yeah, yes.
- [Meyers] Yeah.
[dramatic music playing]
Are we ready?
- Last one!
- [group cheering]
[Meyers] And cut.
[Affleck]
She's still pushing the rock uphill.
And I want to say, like,
"You did it, you did it.
It's okay, you've did it, you proved it.
You're great.
You know, you can, like,
let it go for a minute.
Like, you don't have to carry this.
Uh You don't have anything to prove."
[exhaling]
My heart rate and my wind is
not the same.
I haven't taken a deep breath all day.
[inhaling]
[exhaling]
I'm not going to do anything this weekend.
- Nothing.
- [man] We're good.
I'm not gonna rehearse today.
I'm tired.
Those two notes sheets were fucking hard.
My husband's away at his
[exhaling]
premiere, and I'm really sad
that I wasn't there with him
this weekend.
He got great reviews.
He's been working on this movie and this
this company for a year and a half,
and I just feel bad.
He just is wondering like, is it worth it?
I don't know.
- Anyway I think I just need a break.
- [phone chimes]
I think I'm just tired.
It's a lot.
You know that feeling you're just letting
everybody down all the time?
And you're never really
just doing anything right.
[sobbing]
[sniffles]
It I just It's
I'm sure everybody feels that way.
Just always feel like
you're just not good enough,
you're not good enough at the steps,
you're not good enough in the movie,
you're not good enough as
as a partner, as a mother, as
all of the things.
And all you want to do
is be the best at all those things.
And it's just hard.
You know?
This is as close as I'll ever get
to this exercise equipment. [laughs]
Put your feet in the back.
Wait, hold on to the front.
[Goldsmith-Thomas] I don't even know
where the front is.
My foot back there?
Look, let me show you. Let me show you
[woman] The fly. You put your feet there,
then you lay your arms out
and you fly like that.
You see?
- Okay, let's see if I can do that.
- [woman] Yeah.
I don't know if
this is the smartest thing for me.
I was so happy
eating yogurt five minutes ago.
So wait.
I put my
- [woman] Yeah.
- Flat. Yes.
Now put your ankle in there.
Jennifer, my foot's too big.
There's nothing I can do about that.
Lean more forward
- Fly, like you're flying.
- [J.Lo] Make enough space for your leg.
Your leg has to straighten out.
- Open your arm.
- [J.Lo] Yes. There you go, did it!
[woman] You did it.
- Now, let your arms out.
- Out where?
Let it fly. Let it fly. Let it fly.
Let it fly.
Put it on your chest and go up.
It's going to help you to go up and down.
Okay? I Wow.
This was so fun. Thank you.
[J.Lo] When it's just me
all by myself, what do I like?
Once the kids were in bed,
and once all of that was happening,
and, you know, I was by myself,
you know, I started looking forward
to coming home, to being alone.
I liked it.
I enjoyed my own company.
All of our adult pain,
all of our adult trauma, all of our
the things that we do that we don't like,
that we fucking do,
are because of that little girl,
or little boy inside of us,
that's screaming.
That little Jenny is always with me.
And I had to learn how to go back,
and you know, say, "Are you okay?"
You know, when we're born,
I just feel like we come out
so open and ready to love,
and ready to kind of, like,
believe in all the best things
about life, and our parents, and people.
And then little by little, we lose that.
I think my biggest fear
is that I'll fail at being a parent.
And I don't want to.
["Heart" by Darkside playing]
[Meyers] Now, hear we're entering
the heart chamber.
She's stuck in this heart
trying to keep it alive.
She's basically left for dead.
The last-ditch effort is to feed
the dying flame a rose petal.
Standby. Picture's gonna be up.
Quiet please.
Let's do it.
Here we go.
Can't you see behind this love?
Tell me you dont know
What you dont like what you see
[Meyers] We return and the rose petals
have come back
and the flame is roaring to life.
The factory is back working again
because she found love.
Flames are going to come up on this one.
We're going to be hot.
[song continues]
Well, I don't understand it.
- I know, because nobody does.
- [all laughing]
"Real love doesn't
doesn't need to talk.
It just speaks for itself."
"That wasn't love. That was safe."
That's a good line.
"I wish [exhales] Yeah.
How many times have I done that?"
You see where I'm going with this?
Okay, good.
Now she's gone through
three marriages that have fallen apart.
- [J.Lo] All the husbands on a mantle.
- [Meyers] Yeah.
[all laughing]
[J.Lo] And that's it.
Oh, no, no, no.
The very last one
is just kind of the celebration,
when everything goes perfect,
you know, the happy ending.
She loves herself, the last chapter. Jane.
[indistinct chatter]
Every night I go and play in this
I wrote this song today.
I wrote this song today for you.
- I wrote this song [chuckles]
- For you.
I get real scared,
you know, when all that shit
about the Grammys,
and he looked unhappy, it's like
Oh, my God, what's happening?
Nothing. Nothing.
He was like, "It's like, I've become
the symbol of the beleaguered man."
[laughing]
[woman] That's right.
- [Meyers] We're ready to go.
- Yes, let's go.
[Meyers] And then as you
as you get back interested in,
"Oh, what's she doing next?"
It's like, "Who's that guy?" You know?
[Fonda]
"Why can't she just live her life?"
[J.Lo] "She is living her life.
Why can't everyone
just let her live her life?
You know, she's a queen, she's amazing,
and I love her."
"Pisces. Pisces.
You're awful thirsty for a fish."
I don't know what it means.
I love it! It's so good.
[Meyers] It's great, thirsty is
thirsty means that you're
Thirsty is like somebody who's like,
you know, when they put, like, pictures
of themselves naked on Instagram
and they're always, like, posing.
- They're thirsty.
- Like you!
[laughter]
[J.Lo]
"Leah, they're calling her a maneater."
"They call you a maneater?"
[J.Lo] "I've been called many things."
"Join the club."
- [man] Yeah.
- [all laughing]
[man 2] Small re-light
for me to make that work.
[J.Lo] So we're going to do
a separate light cue for this.
[man 3] And they're watching a movie.
[J.Lo] It's exciting and scary.
You're right.
I'm putting myself out there.
- I get it.
- You're right.
But I don't, like I said,
I don't know how else to do it.
When people look at your life
and everything, and look at you,
it's hard to like
How could you possibly have anything,
- you know, to complain about?
- That's why I think it's important to say.
Not complain about, but to
that there's struggle there.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
[indistinct background chatter]
I made some stupid mistakes, too.
Maybe you already know that,
but I'm admitting it to you.
- Yeah.
- You know what I mean?
[Meyers] All right, here we go.
Rolling, rolling.
Quiet, please. Everybody ready.
[man] Roll cameras, guys.
Let's roll sound.
[J.Lo] Don't make me cry.
This better be it, man,
I'm rooting for you.
[Affleck]
What's success for you with this?
Just doing it.
Just doing it is success.
I heard Prince say the thing
about making music is that it is
a success upon making it.
And I've never understood that
more than I do now.
And I know it could end disastrously.
I know that.
[Affleck] Why do it?
I think it's beautiful.
I think it's worthy.
I think it's worth the risk.
If it turns out great
then that's then I fulfilled my mission.
I let people know like, don't give up!
Do it!
Don't be afraid!
Fuck it, do it afraid! [laughs]
Do it afraid!
[upbeat music playing]
They're going to Vegas.
They're getting married.
You know they're gonna be
divorced in a year.
[laughing]
We're drowning
In orchid arrangements
Dresses and pastries
What if it's raining? Yeah
This is what we've been dreaming of
It's crowded
With families and agents
Room reservations
Which destination?
Paps, helicopters, event of the ages
Caught in the matrix
[Beezy]
Ben Affleck was not on my bingo card.
[laughs] I don't think he was anyone's
bingo card to come back.
And what?
We can disappear tonight
What about a midnight trip to Vegas?
Just me and you, baby
[J.Lo] That heartbreak
set both of us on a course to just
to figuring ourselves out,
and to being better people.
[Affleck] Do you think
you've forgiven me all the way?
Yeah, I think
I've forgiven you all the way.
I think I need to
forgive myself some things.
I just wanted to say thank you, guys.
This was a really, really special project.
I know half the time, you guys are like,
"What the fuck are you guys doing?"
But there is a method to our madness,
and it's a really beautiful story
to be told about love and loving yourself
and what that means for the world.
Everyone who worked on this film
and everyone who created the album,
they really empowered me
because they believed in
what I had to say, that
there's magic out there.
Those five weeks
that we rehearsed with the dancers,
and created this
with all the choreographers,
it was such a cathartic experience for me.
I know it wasn't easy,
and I know I pushed you,
and I know I expected the moon
when we had,
- you know, budget for like a pack of gum.
- [laughter]
But you delivered above and beyond.
And I want to thank Dave
because he put his
whole heart and soul into this.
So, thank you so much, again.
[all cheering]
[J.Lo] I know we're over budget.
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
[Affleck] So what happened?
Did you sell it?
[line trilling]
- [Meyers] Hey.
- Hey.
It was all the people,
the head of marketing,
the head of, you know, docs,
the head of the whole all the heads.
And they were sitting there,
and the minute it was over,
she was like, "Oh, my God, Jennifer."
It could not have gone better.
- It was crazy.
- [Meyers] That's awesome.
And at the end of the day
someone bought it.
- You put all this together yourself.
- We did it.
- No "we" about it.
- [laughing]
No fucking "we" about any of it.
Let's go!
[Affleck] It's the first time
she's done something
as an artistic form of expression
that was purely for the sake
of what she had to express.
It was about bringing out things
that she felt inside
that she just wanted to say.
And I don't really love
being in the making-of documentary
about my personal life,
which is why I'm so relieved
that it's not really seems like I might
be in this, but it's not
I'm not really.
I was worrying for no reason.
The movie wasn't about me.
It was about the ability to love yourself.
And that love story
is a lot fucking harder to find
than Prince Charming.
[Lewis] You don't fuck around with time.
You live and learn.
Let me say this to you
the prize for aging
is wisdom.
Wisdom feels good.
It's precious.
Love something, love somebody.
But more than that,
you better find a way
to at least like yourself.
When you take your last breath,
you won't think about
who did something wrong to you.
You will think about who loved you.
[Sadghuru]
Love is not something that you do,
it's something that you can become.
It's lifelong.
It goes on
Whether you like it or you don't like it,
you'll end up loving something,
if not somebody.
[deGrasse Tyson] Our atoms
were forged in the cores of stars.
Those stars exploded, scattering
that enrichment across the galaxy,
out of which the next generations
of stars and planets are born.
We are stardust.
It is literally true.
Not only are you alive in the universe,
the universe is alive within you.
You know, art is beauty, but it's pain.
You know, sometimes it's the pain
that's beautiful, it's sad.
[J.Lo]
I feel like I came out the other side.
I've made it through.
I've made something good of my life.
And I'm proud of that.
But one of the parts of that
was admitting to myself,
you're not perfect.
You're not completely whole.
And you know what?
Something that's worn
and older and broken,
like a nice, leather jacket,
or an old pair of boots,
is really beautiful.
And kind of embracing the beauty
of the scars
that we pick up along the way.
["I Still Love You"
by Switch and Andrea Martin playing]
[vocalizing]
Ain't it strange
How I call out your name?
I met silence again
Can't remember when I last smiled within
'Cause doing bad is in
But I'm letting go
I'm giving in
'Cause I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love you, I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love you
I need to breathe
I need you to succeed
I met silence again
'Cause his love grew thin
I can't hurt the same
I'm immune to pain
If you break these chains
Help me live again
If I'd known it was you
I woulda said it was you
But you gave up too soon
You made it seem true
I will risk my heart
If you risk yours again
Boy, I'm letting go, I'm giving in
'Cause I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love you, I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love you
No one ever wants to say goodbye
We should have
Gave ourselves another try
Should've only been one thing
Us against the wind
Now I only have myself to blame
And I cry beside
This thing called rain
Wished our feelings never changed
But I'm letting go, I'm giving in
I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love, I still love
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love, love I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
I still love you
Please come back to me
I still love you
He's everything I need
I still love you
You make my life complete
[music fades out]